Learning to Pray from a Daughter and a Dot*

“Go brush your teeth, and I’ll come help you get ready for school.” With these familiar words, I attempted to send my 5-year-old daughter, Elise, from the kitchen with marching orders to get the day started and give me an opportunity to do an all-important check of my Facebook feed. Monday morning priorities, you know.

As Elise hopped down from the table with her usual exuberance, she moved, not toward the hallway, as instructed, but instead she skipped the opposite direction toward me. “Elise,” I said in full daddy-tone. “What did I tell you to do?” Without missing a beat, she gave me a giant hug and snuck a peak at the phone in my hand.

“Prayer dot!” she exclaimed. Her eyes locked on my face, looking to see how I would respond to her spotting the green dot affixed to the upper right hand corner of my iPhone screen. “Elise, I said…” Ugh! I can’t encourage the members of Calvary Presbyterian Church to pray for the ministry of our congregation every time they see that dot throughout their day and suddenly ignore it when my own daughter eagerly wants to stop and come before her Heavenly Father.

“I guess we should pray,” I said. With that, Elise and I both lifted up Calvary and our ministries before our great God, and then, she bounded down the hallway with joy on her face, prepared to get ready for her morning at school.

As she turned the corner, I sat at the table thinking, “my daughter just used a dot to teach me to pray.” While I seek to teach our congregation to pray for our 3:21 initiative and therefore, to entrust all we are and have to our Lord, He is using simple prayer dots as my daughter’s teaching-aid to instruct me in the way of faith.

As you go before the throne of God’s grace in the coming weeks to lift up the ministry of Calvary in prayer, may you have the gift of going before him with the faith of a child, “for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven” (Matt 19:14). May we have open hearts to be taught to pray, even by the smallest in our midst!

*Learn more about Calvary’s 3:21 Initiative here. Prayer dot cards are available at Calvary each week. We encourage each of our members and attenders to take one and use it to help guide your prayers during our 3:21 Initiative.

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